The present disclosure relates to a refrigeration cycle of a refrigerator.
In refrigerator according to the related art, a refrigerant is transferred from one compressor into evaporators respectively disposed at rear sides of a refrigerating compartment and freezing compartment, and then, a valve disposed in each of the evaporators is adjusted in opening degree to alternately perform an operation for cooling the freezing compartment and the refrigerating compartment. Alternatively, a freezing compartment is cooled by using a single evaporator disposed on a side of the freezing compartment, and then cool air is transferred into a refrigerating compartment by using a damper.
However, in the case of the above-described structure, temperatures required for the refrigerating compartment and the freezing compartment are different from each other. Thus, to realize the temperatures required for the two storage compartments, which have a large temperature difference therebetween, in a refrigeration cycle including one compressor, the compressor may operate out of the optimum efficiency range thereof. To solve this limitation, a two-cycle refrigerator including a refrigeration cycle for a refrigerating compartment and a refrigeration cycle for a freezing compartment has been released.
However, in case of the two-cycle refrigerator, following limitations occurs as ever. That is, in the two cycles, one of the limitations is that two compressors and condensers have to be installed in a machine room. As a result, the machine room may increase in volume, and thus the storage compartment may be reduced in volume.
Also, if the two compressors and condensers are installed in the limited machine room, the condensers are limited in size and capacity to cause a limit in heat-dissipation area for dissipating heat.
In addition, when the two condensers and two compressors are disposed in the machine room, flow resistance of indoor air that forcibly flows into the machine room by a condensation fan to deteriorate heat-dissipation efficiency of the condensers.
To solve the above-described limitations of the refrigerator having the two refrigerant cycles, needs for developing a refrigerator that has a small size and high heat-dissipation efficiency due to the machine room having a limited volume are being on the rise.